‎This just in from the newswires: The Anti-Trust Division of the US Department of Justice has announced that whenever Sale take The Bump, it is unfair competition in violation of various federal and state laws. However, he is not being prosecuted because it is so ****in awesome to watch him do his craft.

I'm really optimistic about the pitching the Sox have for next year. The four-man lefty options as starters of Sale, Quintana, Danks, and Santiago is solid. One of those (Santiago) will have to be in the pen at the start of the year, unless they go with an unconventional 4 lefties and 1 righty rotation.

I would prefer Quintana over Santiago as a starter since Santiago has experience in the pen and Quintana seems more suited as a starter.

You mean September performances after the team has been eliminated and they're playing another non-contender.

The early September performances are very important--notably this year in the midst of a pennant race--and the rookie pitchers generally did well. I think the problems they had as a group was general fatigue from a long season and the lack of veteran starters to eat innings earlier in the season to make it easier on them later.

Santiago had a good year. But, no, he is not going to pitch a one-hitter every time out next year.

You mean September performances after the team has been eliminated and they're playing another non-contender.

The early September performances are very important--notably this year in the midst of a pennant race--and the rookie pitchers generally did well. I think the problems they had as a group was general fatigue from a long season and the lack of veteran starters to eat innings earlier in the season to make it easier on them later.

Santiago had a good year. But, no, he is not going to pitch a one-hitter every time out next year.

I won't make an assessment of Morel until he comes back completely healthy next year. I wonder how much of his poor play was due to being injured.

__________________"I have the ultimate respect for White Sox fans. They were as miserable as the Cubs and Red Sox fans ever were but always had the good decency to keep it to themselves. And when they finally won the World Series, they celebrated without annoying every other fan in the country." Jim Caple, ESPN (January 12, 2011)

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the (bleeding) obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." — George Orwell

You mean September performances after the team has been eliminated and they're playing another non-contender.

The early September performances are very important--notably this year in the midst of a pennant race--and the rookie pitchers generally did well. I think the problems they had as a group was general fatigue from a long season and the lack of veteran starters to eat innings earlier in the season to make it easier on them later.

Santiago had a good year. But, no, he is not going to pitch a one-hitter every time out next year.

The White Sox weren't eliminated going into the game. But in any case, a mid-season performance can be just as misleading as a September performance, even in a pennant race if you are going to judge a pitcher on one game. The list of major league pitchers who come up and impress for three months and never approach that consistently in their careers again is a long one. In the end, you don't even know if Quintana has a career as a solid starter in front of him, despite doing so well when the games were more important.

The A's in recent history have had a bunch of starters come up and look great and soon struggle, usually with arm trouble figuring into it. Vin Mazarro made his debut taking a shutout into the seventh against the White Sox before coming out. In his next start, he took a shutout into the eighth against the Orioles. He pitched four shutout innings against the Giants in his third start before Tim Lincecum and Aaron Rowand got hits to cap a three-run fifth inning and he has struggled since, this year making headlines by giving up 7 earned runs in miserable 1.1 innings when the Royals just left him out there as if it were a spring training game.

But in 1970 with the A's out of the race, September callup Vida Blue pitched a one-hit shutout against the expansion Royals after the worst White Sox team in franchise history roughed him up in his previous start. Two starts later, he no-hit the Twins, who were coasting to the AL West title -- up 8.5 games with nine left to play. The next season, Blue with his 1.82 starter's ERA was the reason Wilbur Wood didn't win the Cy Young in his first 20-win season with an ERA of 1.91.

It isn't that anyone can go in an shut down a major league team, especially now when starting pitchers aren't expected to pitch nine innings. What a pitcher has done doesn't tell you what he will do in the future. It may tell you what he has the ability to do under opimimum conditions. It doesn't tell you how he can adjust to the adjustments other players are making. It doesn't tell you how he can pitch with a dead arm, which all quality starters have to do over the course of a season. It doesn't even tell you how well he can pitch out of the stretch, although there are statistics that attempt to do that.

Santiago pitched a great game. It may have told you more if it were against the Tigers. But even then, it wouldn't have told you if he could be a consistently strong starter in the future.

I'm really optimistic about the pitching the Sox have for next year. The four-man lefty options as starters of Sale, Quintana, Danks, and Santiago is solid. One of those (Santiago) will have to be in the pen at the start of the year, unless they go with an unconventional 4 lefties and 1 righty rotation.

I would prefer Quintana over Santiago as a starter since Santiago has experience in the pen and Quintana seems more suited as a starter.

Back in 1979 we had 4 lefty starters that we all thought would lead us to the WS for years. Steve Trout, Ken Kravec, Tex Wortham and Ross Baumgarten all were .500 or better for a team that was 14 games under .500.
That was the high watermark and by 1982 they were either traded or out of Baseball. Lets hope the current crop does better.

__________________Coming up to bat for our White Sox is the Mighty Mite, Nelson Fox.

I think the screwball is the key pitch for Santiago as a starter. It's the pitch that won him the closer job but he eventually lost the feel for it during the season and only had sporadic control of it after that. If he ever gets full command of that pitch, I feel he can have success as a starter since he has a plus fastball and a decent curve.

__________________
The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done." -George Carlin